All Things Trump: Is it over yet?

[Svartalf]

anybody who ever watched his reality tv shows knows how competent 45 is

[Forty Two]

Trump had a Republican Congress for two years, and failed to get his vanity wall funded. Suddenly, partisan nitwits are jumping up and down and shouting it's all the 'Dems' fault. Can't be that the great deal maker is an incompetent, oh no, it's those nasty 'Dems'.

Well, sure - but the problem he had in his first budget is the same problem he had in the second budget. To get the wall funded he needed a supermajority in the Senate. I.e., you can pass it in the House with a majority, which they had. But, they only had a narrow one Senator majority in the Senate. So, the Democrats wouldn't pass a bill that had the wall funding Trump wanted.

If all that was needed - like in most countries - was a majority vote of the House and Senate, Trump would have had it, or if he didn't you'd have a point. However, the only reason he was even talking to Pelosi and Schumer was that Trump needed some Democrat votes, and he wasn't getting any.

Spending measures require 60 votes in the Senate, not 51.

[Brian Peacock]

And so it's only right and fair for him to try and circumvent the constitution? I mean, if Congress just agreed with him there'd be no need to invoke emergency power would there?

[Forty Two]

No, it's neither right, nor fair for him to circumvent the constitution, and I don't think he is circumventing the constitution.

Congress legislated the power to the President to declare a national emergency in 1977. Trump’s proclamation declares that it is necessary to increase the use of military forces at the border and to invoke the emergency military construction authority in 10 U.S.C. § 2808, which will provide funding for the construction of border walls. The Secretary of Defense will activate members of the Ready Reserve to assist and support the activities of the Secretary of Homeland Security at the southern border. At the current monthly rate, October, November, December and January, of the current fiscal year, there will be well over 800,000 illegal apprehensions at the border - nearly triple what occurrred in 2017. The courts are backlogged to about 1.2 million immigration cases going, and it's more than doubled just since Trump took office. The average wait for a hearing is pushing three years. Three years of banging around the country, just waiting for a hearing date.

Director of National Intelligence Daniel R. Coats, identified an increase in migration from Central America as a national security threat in the Worldwide Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community that he presented to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on Jan. 29, 2019. And, we know how much respect the Democrats have to our "intelligence community" - and how we really have to accept their conclusions. Sounds rather emergent, doesn't it?

On what basis do you believe Trump does not have the power to under the National Emergencies Act to declare the instant national emergency? On what basis are you saying he's violating the Constitution?

How do you evaluate other national emergencies - like the one in Burundi?

[Forty Two]

And so it's only right and fair for him to try and circumvent the constitution? I mean, if Congress just agreed with him there'd be no need to invoke emergency power would there?

Different question.

And yes, if Congress handled it, then it wouldn't be necessary to pass a national emergency -- which is the same truth about every other national emergency ever proclaimed. National Emergencies are not things Congress has no authority to do. The national emergencies act delegates power to the President to do that which Congress could do.

[Brian Peacock]

Thanks for clearing that up. You don't think this is a step too far - that this is executive branch overreach?

[Cunt]

If walls stop crime they should build one round Wall Street. The clue is in the name I guess.

Walls don't stop crime. They stop people from walking across the border unobstructed.

How many people make it into the Darien Gap, vs how many make it across the US border? Any idea? Is there a census on that number?

I've also thought that, if welfare is for US citizens, and is somehow paid to illegal immigrants, isn't that another serious theft from the country?

So every illegal who is accessing services is further robbing their neighbours (if those neighbours are citizens, I guess)

You can joke about walls all you want, but the US government built some on national borders in the Mid-East, so they obviously aren't 'immoral'. Nor are they 'ineffective'.

If someone spreads the obvious lie that they are either ineffective or immoral, their agenda should be examined.

[pErvinalia]

...

[Tero]

People still following Trump’s distractions:
Twice in two days, President Donald Trump falsely tweeted that acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe’s wife received $700,000 in campaign donations from Hillary Clinton.
https://www.factcheck.org/2017/07/trump ... donations/

[Cunt]

Yeah, he also recently tweeted that there was a coup. (he agreed with a pundit's tweet saying so, I think)

It's all VERY important, I'm sure.

[JimC]

So, your basic point is that every criticism of Trump involves trivial stuff, and that people have no real reason to criticise him other than ideological allegiance or emotion.

Which ignores vast amounts of reasoned, non-emotional criticism from serious people with a variety of political stances...

[Cunt]

So, your basic point is that every criticism of Trump involves trivial stuff, and that people have no real reason to criticise him other than ideological allegiance or emotion.

Which ignores vast amounts of reasoned, non-emotional criticism from serious people with a variety of political stances...

If we didn't live in a crazy world, you could take either side on occasion (like I do)

I think my position on most things is left, or liberal, but because I don't hate the right properly, people accuse me of being other than I am.

[Tero]

[Hermit]

...because I don't hate the right properly, people accuse me of being other than I am.

Just for the record: I don't hate you. I don't accuse you of being other than you are either. (Yes, I know what you meant with that garble.) I do disagree with most of your opinions and wish you'd stop trolling, though.

[L'Emmerdeur]

Well, sure - but the problem he had in his first budget is the same problem he had in the second budget. To get the wall funded he needed a supermajority in the Senate. I.e., you can pass it in the House with a majority, which they had. But, they only had a narrow one Senator majority in the Senate. So, the Democrats wouldn't pass a bill that had the wall funding Trump wanted.

If all that was needed - like in most countries - was a majority vote of the House and Senate, Trump would have had it, or if he didn't you'd have a point. However, the only reason he was even talking to Pelosi and Schumer was that Trump needed some Democrat votes, and he wasn't getting any.

Spending measures require 60 votes in the Senate, not 51.

It's as if you expect people to have forgotten what happened just a year ago.

In January of last year, Trump said that he'd sign a bipartisan bill when Congress came up with one, to extend DACA in concert with enhanced border security. When a bipartisan plan was put together by the Senate, under which DACA protections would be extended in conjunction with a $25 billion funding package for border security, including funding for Trump's wall project, Trump rejected it. The supposed master of the art of the deal had a deal handed to him all wrapped up, a deal much better from the perspective of funding for his vanity project than anything that's come along since, a deal that he'd said he'd agree to, and he refused to close the deal.

On the other hand, when legislation based on Trump's demands was put before the Senate, it got only 39 votes, and only 14 Republicans voted for it. There were at least two other Senate bills that laid out funding for border security including the wall, but Trump lobbied against them because they included a DACA solution. The fact is that Trump has done much more to sabotage deal-making in regard to this issue than he has helped it along, and only a Trump sycophant would deny that and blame the Democrats instead.